Over the last several years I have been lucky enough to find myself surrounded by some pretty interesting folks here in the sweet old mountains of western North Carolina, who manage to fill their days doing such things as felting tiny baby shoes, hand stitching buckskin skirts, hunting for wild foods and mushrooms, building hand-hewn log cabins and straw bale cottages, growing heirloom vegetables and flowers, whittling adorable little wooden spoons, waltzing in the moonlight, making bamboo fences, and a thousand other things that I am daily fascinated and humbled by.

When I make pots it is with the hope that they will nestle comfortably into the lives of the wild and wonderful artists and farmers and musicians all around me and beyond, who seem to be forever raising the bar of what it means to walk around on this earth in a good way. I aim to create simple, sturdy tableware that feels and looks pretty good, and is equally at home on an intimate dinner table or on the floor of an old pick-up truck.

Laurie Shaman

Invited by Shankin/Warstler

I create porcelain tabletop and wall pieces using slab-built techniques, with an eye on developing shapes and contours that best provide the surface for my hand-drawn imagery. These forms become a canvas for depicting my interests in the natural world, travel and art history. The work I make today evolved naturally over time from a strong foundation producing functional pottery, as well as having an ongoing practice of creating works on paper with a variety of drawing techniques. These once separate pursuits have been the basis of my ceramic work, and combined, produce the satisfaction of merging the painted surface to three-dimensional form.  

Many of my pieces have textural embellishments that give a nod to the classical world of ruins, remnants and worn down surfaces. After the bisque kiln firing, the textural areas on all the pieces are brushed with underglazes and wiped down to accentuate the lines and marks. This first step of wiping colors on and off the surface creates a patina that brings subtle markings to the surface that I often integrate in the overall appearance. Whether birds, animals, landscape, foliage or figure, it is my hope that the drawing quality is spirited and enlivens the vessel or tile with which it is partnered.

Each pot seeks its own place.  The place found where a cup sits on a saucer, within a family of bowls, the visual landscape created by a group of bottles, or on one’s own kitchen table.  We find comfort in what we understand and are intrigued by what we do not. 

 I am inspired by the landscapes and structures that have surrounded me during my life.  I grew up in the mountains of southwest Virginia and have lived in the middle of a city.  The silos, corncribs, wooden barns and rural structures that time has weathered and pulled influence my forms, spaces and the relationships of the pots to one another.  I am fascinated by the water towers perched atop tall city buildings and the limited space that has forced the buildings to be more vertical.  I work to create a layered effect with the surfaces, hoping to find a depth with the layers of glazes, decal images and color.

 I hope to direct the pots to find an intimacy with a moment; the moment of touch, frozen in time by the heat of the kiln or the moment of use. I would like to make pots to enter into a person’s life and to heighten an awareness of time and elevate an experience of place.  I wish for my pots to be a part of a home in an intimate way, adding a sense of character and individuality to the daily habits of eating and drinking.  Pots can participate in and affect their environment, transforming the act of buttering toast into a ritual or remembered experience. It is my hope that each pot brings its own unique experience to the user and offers a moment of reflection and joy.

Laurie Shaman

Invited by Shankin/Warstler Studio

I create porcelain tabletop and wall pieces using slab-built techniques, with an eye on developing shapes and contours that best provide the surface for my hand-drawn imagery. These forms become a canvas for depicting scenes that combine my interests in the natural world, travel and art history.

The work I make today evolved naturally over time from a strong foundation producing functional pottery, as well as having an ongoing practice of creating works on paper with a variety of drawing techniques. These once separate pursuits have been the basis of my ceramic work, and combined, produce the satisfaction of merging the painted surface to three-dimensional form.

I like creating families of vertical and horizontal vessels as well as tiles and wall pieces. I especially enjoy adding textural embellishments to the pieces that give a nod to the classical world of ruins, remnants and worn down surface. Making a variety of shapes for each kiln load helps me contemplate what to draw on the forms as I prepare for the bisque firing and the surface painting to follow.

After the bisque kiln firing, the textural areas on all the pieces are brushed with underglazes and wiped down to accentuate the lines and marks. This first step of wiping colors on and off the surface creates a patina that brings subtle markings to the surface that I often integrate in the overall appearance.

I usually work in a spontaneous manner rather than pre-planning the imagery I bring to each piece. Whether birds, animals, landscape, foliage or figure, it is my hope that the drawing quality is spirited and enlivens the vessel or tile with which it is partnered.

Jessica Wertz

Invited by Wrenn Pottery Studio

My work is about creating deep connections and reflecting beauty. I work with pottery because it answers real needs. I intend my work to be a vehicle of connection to our food, our home, our daily commonalities of self-care, and to our ancestors. In the confluence of being present to these daily rituals I experience sacred living. My porcelain jewelry allows me to work on a small scale to create objects that allow others to feel beautiful. The sense of play I experience and joy it brings is pure and I don't overcomplicate it.

I am interested in the language of signs, symbols, and traditions that have shaped us, and how our tribal memory is embedded in our current culture. The intention of my work  is that it encourages a daily celebration of being alive while feeling a connection to our roots.

Essentially, I am dealing with effects of agents of growth and decay and how these agents shape and embellish the surfaces of stones and the skins of trees. These agents also serve key roles in interacting with my ceramic vessels.  Mushrooms, seed pods, grubs and other growths serve as knobs and handles, allowing one to remove lids and discover what might be inside or underneath a covered vessel, like lifting a rock to have insects scurry in many different directions when subjected to the light of day. The vessels are not intended to be actual representations of the trees and rocks, but abstractions and stylizations of these natural phenomena. Employing an earthy background palette stretched across textured but quieter surfaces, I wanted to upset that quiet earthiness with intense splashes of vibrant color, patterns, and glossy surfaces not commonly associated with tree bark or the rough surfaces of rocks amidst fallen leaves.  I am interested in inflated volume and thick line qualities that reference comic style drawings and how that can apply to interpreting the natural world. With my ceramic vessels I hope to create a comic book interpretation of the natural world with a focus on the rocks and trees and their role in the perpetual organic comedy of growth and decay.

Jerilyn Virden

Invited by Granatelli Studio

Using the vernacular of the vessel, I use earthenware clay to create utilitarian and sculptural pieces. While the sculptural and utilitarian objects come from different inspirations, they are united by formal aspects and considerations, inhabiting the same space and enriching it equally. Looking to seemingly unrelated objects that have a contemporary relevance, I pare down forms and exaggerate proportions accentuating their sense of generosity and strength. Functional work and double walled bowls are formed through repeated pinching and scraping, building up and finally excavating the appropriate curve, each piece retaining the history of its making. Layers of glaze soften these individual marks, bringing more clarity to the form.  Hollow construction allows for exaggeration of features, contributing a visual weight that floats above the table.  The surface becomes a way to manipulate scale, moving from intimacy to expansion, in the way one understands a landscape by knowing both the small stone at one’s feet and the bulk of the mountain far away.

Joey Sheehan

Invited by Knudsen/Manning Studio

I began my explorations in clay over 15 years ago.  I was captivated by the material and the wheel, and the idea that I could create something beautiful and useful at the same time.  As I began to grasp the concepts of making and form, my interest fell more into surface and color.  I use textural porcelain slips and layered glazes to create bright, flowing, and volatile surfaces.  As I have grown and matured in life, my work has followed.  I am still fascinated by glaze and surface, but with a higher understanding of form and flow.  I am deeply influenced by classical shapes and why and how they were made.  I attempt to embrace these studied forms but with a contemporary twist.  In my current method of firing in a large two chamber wood kiln as well as a newly built gas “car” kiln, I am exploring the interaction between form and fire; building a relationship in each piece between the function, the surface, and the story of the firing process.  I have also been pushing my own limits of making and firing with large scale figurative and abstract sculpture.  These pieces present challenges in making, moving, and firing; insuring that I am constantly studying and learning.  Each piece is made and placed conscientiously in the kiln with expectation and openness.  A desire for success, and a pupil’s acceptance of result.

Drawing a line with ink is simple. Drawing a line with electricity is alive. This line moves on its own accord, leaving a creative trail in its path, and burning charred channels in the wood.

High-voltage woodburning is a new method of passing electricity over the surface of wood to create branching patterns called Lichtenberg figures. This is typically an unpredictable application process that continually disregards your directions. However, I have developed my own techniques to control this force of nature to create nature-inspired works of art.

Using locally collected wood, I like to allow the natural beauty to shine, as it directs the creative process with wood grain contours and varied textures. Since wood is naturally lightweight, it is a perfect material to make bold earrings that catch attention without weighing you down. Each pair is one-of-a-kind to mirror the complex diversity found in nature. Out of thousands of leaves on an oak tree, no two are exactly the same. While all are obviously oak leaves, they each carry the signature of their own process of creation. Surround yourself with art from nature and feel the support of our radiant Earth.

Becca Imbur

Invited by Sarah McCarthy

I make art journals, artists books, altered books and mixed media collages. I collect a wide variety of found objects including discarded books, magazines and other everyday items to create collages that encourage the viewer to look deeper into my art. Being ecologically sustainable in my art is important to me. I scour thrift stores, yard sales and flea markets for books and paper to use throughout my creative process.

When I am not in my studio, you can find me teaching book and paper arts all over the world including the United States and China. I enjoy taking long, meandering walks in downtown Blacksburg, hiking the Blue Ridge Mountains and hanging out with my super creative daughter, River.

Lynne Hobaica

Invited by Denniston/Guzovsky Studio

My work is driven by a need for challenge and a passion to create. Inspiration can pop up at any time but is almost always influenced by my love for nature and my South-Western Virginia heritage. I define my art as a balance between mastery of technique and an expression of opinion, which most often embraces the more quirky and imperfect aspects of life. My goal is to share what I have so enthusiastically created and that the wearer feels the energy that went into the making.

Annie Grimes Williams

Invited by Benjie Osborne

Annie Grimes Williams is a native of North Carolina, and currently lives in Winston-Salem, NC. She works full time as a metalsmith, making work in her studio and traveling to exhibit in Craft Fairs as well as show work in galleries around the country. Annie is an exhibiting member of several regional craft guilds and serves on multiple boards for local art organizations. She also teaches metalsmithing and enameling workshops at Sawtooth School for Visual Art. When she is not in the studio, Annie enjoys spending time with her husband, 4 year old son, and dog exploring the outdoors at local parks and retreating to the beach whenever possible. Her love for nature can be seen in her work which often features nature-inspired forms, colors, and textures.

My work is primarily influenced by my fascination with forms and their interior spaces, by color, and by my affinity for the natural world and the allure it holds for me. I feel that we are all connected to nature and to one another on a very primal level.I use traditional metal smithing techniques, such as shell forming, piercing, and enameling as well as contemporary and experimental techniques like torch fired liquid enamels. Traditionally, I have used kiln firing exclusively in my enamel work, but for the past five years, I have been working with liquid form white enamel and torch-firing techniques as well. All of the color variation in these pieces come
from the extemely high heat of the acetylene torch, which when precisely controlled, will draw the oxides of the copper base metal up through the enamel layer to create organic patterns and colors in a completely unique way. Each piece in this series is one-of-a-kind and could never be replicated exactly because of all the varying factors that go into each stage of the process. The hand-drawn sgraffito designs are often my graphic interpretations of patterns found in nature, such as sea grasses blowing in the breeze, silhouettes of rolling hills, or curling vines.I love creating these pieces that not only speak to my love for the natural world, but also fuel my passion for the materials and techniques that have been used for many centuries and have a rich history of their own. I am honored to be able to put my own life into them and make unique and beautiful
pieces to put out into the world.

Lynne’s Statement

I am inspired by the beauty and struggle of the stories we experience, often locating humor in moments that were once painful or embarrassing. Through color and form, my work dances in a world of play, deep emotion, and empathy.
I make ceramic objects with layers of narrative imagery built up on the surface. My work is fueled by thoughts on how our awareness of death propels how we live and is inspired by the stories we experience and will be remembered by. I reveal characters pulled from personal and historical mythologies and fairytales and give them an emotion or gesture that you might connect with; perhaps you recognize an old friend, a past lover or yourself. It is through these connections and more that I am inspired to create, ultimately to share my own stories, and the stories that others have generously shared with me.

I see pots as vessels for storytelling; they can invoke thoughts, memories, and emotions which enliven a moment or an entire day. Clay is my canvas and my collaborator, and together we explore how to convey the poetry of the natural world within the limits of a vessel. What is the formal vocabulary of emotion, and what voice does the clay have in the storytelling? Is it possible to give growing things a voice of their own, through artistic representation? These questions guide my making and still leave me wondering and curious. Each plant and pattern is inlaid into the clay with my own nostalgia, hope, and reverence for the lives and stories of the green and tendrilled world. My hope is that these stories, carved in clay, will expand and individualize within the home, taking on a life of their own like the best folktales, through the accrued layers of meaning which use and touch bring to everything familiar.

aylamullen.com

Emilio Santini

Showing at Granatelli Studio

My main occupation for the past 35 years of my life, is creating object in glass for functional and decorative purposes and art objects.I do not look for inspiration anywhere, but I let my soul to be touched by an object, a phrase, a landscape, a mood, the smile of a person, or the drop of rain; and in translating those feeling into an object, I define the meaning of life, which can be read in them and through them.

www.santiniemilio.com

In a world of chaos, my work is an offering of refuge – an invitation to be still, to be quiet, to reflect. Each of my beeswax and oil paintings depicts such a moment in nature – a mother bird hovering over her nest and the fledgling soon to be, a hummingbird taking a sip of nectar from a delicate hanging flower, a heron gracefully standing at the water’s edge as if in contemplation. Nature is where I find my deepest peace. My work endeavors to offer the viewer a glimmer of the same.

To create my beeswax and oil paintings, I brush several layers of melted beeswax onto a cradled panel. Using a clay-carving tool, I engrave intricate nature-inspired images into the wax and then oil paint my drawing to bring the linework to life.  Each piece lovingly pays homage to the beauty and wonder of the natural world.

jessiebensonfineart.com

Shanti Yard

Showing at Osborne Studio

I’ve been a professional wood turner for 16 years, traveling through out the nation selling at juried art shows. I primarily use hardwood burl from Floyd, Va. and neighboring counties. The most exciting aspect of my work lies in the unfoldment, a sort of flowering, of a raw piece of wood. Each final piece reveals unique shape and grain pattern, a preservation of nature’s exquisiteness; no two are alike.

Currently I am exploring sculptural dimensions with wood, focusing on form over function. I incorporate inlay of crushed gemstone such as turquoise, malachite, lapis and chrysocolla as well as using metal powders including bronze, silver and copper. I am also combining fine mineral specimens with hollow form vessels that are exciting and unexpected.

www.shantiyard.com

Having been raised in Willis, Hanna's heart sustains deep connection to Floyd, Virginia. Rural living propelled her curiosity of natural growth patterns and cycles of transformation. Her deep-rooted craft heritage kindles an enthrallment for traditional wood firing practices. Subtle flashes of color upon her voluptuous surfaces reveal the velocity of flame through the wood kiln, adding to the variation of each piece. Hanna's work mimics organic growth and fluid movement through her process of altering and carving wheel thrown forms. Her sculptures refer to strength and fragility of nature, imperfection and impermanence. Having lived the past 8 years in the Pacific Northwest, Hanna feels honored to show with the artists who inspired her original intrigue in clay so long ago.

Suzie Ross

Showing at Granatelli Studio

I am drawn to photographs, a still image in a moment in time.  My goal as an artist is to make an image that connects my soul to the world I live in.  In turn, my hope is that these images empower those who see them to connect  their stories, their heart,  to the world they see in my pictures.  I want to leave room in my work for the imagination of the viewer to roam.   It’s a goal.  Sometimes I just make a pretty picture, or one to document my week, but sometimes I make an image that makes my spirits soar.      My favorite muse is the small pond on our property, for me it gives new meaning to looking beneath the surface.  I am never visiting the same place twice.    

 My first camera was a Brownie, which I bought from my brother, for $8, or maybe it was $12, I don’t remember.  I’ve used a lot of different cameras since then, from Nikon’s to Holga’s to homemade pinhole cameras. For many years I had a darkroom and was dedicated to black and white.  My current camera is an iPhone.  

 My interest in photography has led me to handmade books and paper, printmaking, alternative 19th century processes like cyanotype, paper weaving, drawing.  It is a journey that is making me happy.  

My interest in pottery can be traced to my graduate school days in North Carolina. My wife and I often made day long trips to visit some of the traditional farm potteries surrounding Chapel Hill (Cole family, Jugtown, etc.) and started collecting. At the time, making pottery had not occurred to me but I learned to appreciate the form and craft of production. Some years later when we had moved to upstate New York, my wife wanted to set up a small studio in our home and learn how to make pottery. This eventually led to my giving it a try, taking some coursework at Syracuse University where I taught, and getting hooked. It has been full steam ahead since. We now live in an artistically rich environment (Floyd, Viginia) and I have put together a complete studio with a number of kilns that allow me to create pretty much anything that I can imagine. Living among so many quality potters has enabled me to get technical help as well as encouragement.

I have been drawn to two forms of glazing that are used in most of my work: ash glazes fired in a gas reduction environment and crystalline glazes fired in a well controlled electric kiln. Both forms of glazing have presented numerous challenges, but I appreciate the beauty of both and continue to explore the possibilities of each.

My goal for the coming year, five years, is the same as it has always been since I started: constant experimenting and production to increase the quality of my work. Ceramics is an activity that requires a long view in order to deal with the many mistakes that occur along the way. Although frustrating, the mistakes are part of the learning process.

Dennis Ross

Showing at Granatelli Studio

Wood turning is a craft using a natural material to fulfill a basic need for a bowl. Bowls contain our food and our things. Wooden bowls enliven an interior space, reminding us of our organic nature. Turning bowls from native trees found on my 50 acre farm in the mountains of Virginia satisfies my desire to make useful things that are also decorative. I use trees and limbs that are fallen from storm or disease. The decoration on my bowls comes from the beauty of the wood itself I seek out wood that has been stressed by living; twisted limbs and wood infested by beetles or fungus. The tree reacts to these stresses by producing extraordinary grain and color. I sometimes fill large defects with copper or stone dust to stabilize the bowl. My bowls are meant to be handled and used, bringing some of the outdoors inside.

Becky and Jon met forty-four years ago as students in ceramics at Penland School of Crafts in Penland NC. Becky had been a philosophy major who switched to pottery, and Jon had been an engineer and professor of mechanical engineering who came to Penland on a whim as a total beginner in clay. Since that time they have made a happy and fulfilling life together as potters, partners, and parents.

Their commitment has been to make useful, functional stoneware pottery, intended for daily use in the home with a focus on the preparation and serving of food.. They believe that a life filled with handmade objects adds to a mindful and intentional life, while bringing a source of pleasure to its owners.  Best known for their dinnerware, they also make bakeware, serving bowls and platters, along with more decorative pieces. 

Spring 2018

Sandi Pierantozzi

with Ellen Shankin and Brad Warstler
Website:  www.sandiandneil.com

Neil Patterson

with Ellen Shankin and Brad Warstler
Website:  www.sandiandneil.com

Annie Grimes Williams

with Benjie Osborne
Website: www.coppertide.net

Agnes Seebass

with Silvie Granatelli
Website: www.agnesseebass.com

Janel Jacobson

with Ellen Shankin and Brad Warstler

Website: www.sunrisemnpottery.com

Benjie Osborne

with Silvie Granatelli

 Website: www.thiswasatree.com

Joey Sheehan

with Rick Hensley

Website: www.meltingmountainpottery.com

Josh Manning

with Rick Hensley

Website: www.parlourpottery.com

Laura Cooke

with Josh Copus

Website:  www.cookeceramics.com